Finally hit cap on the CBT1. Ran the Bastion dungeon which was pretty decent. Not a whole lot of drops on these things, but at least the spoils are tradable. Here's Arliman at 22.

Front View

Back View

Overall the game is fun. It was certainly lively and social with how many people were running around. I didn't find the story all that bad, just terribly cliche. The writing is actually much better than Aion. My biggest gripe was that the font was way too small in many places and the UI is just ugly. Still its a very solid MMO that hits all the expected points, and there's a ton of group quests 20+ so the impetus to group up is there, something I felt was lacking with TOR. Anyway I had fun - it certainly doesn't break any molds outside of the combat system, but that's a good thing imho. The inspection and enchanting system is a pretty neat way to encourage gear hoarding. The glyph and crystal augment system is equally well done, but i'm not a big fan of having crystals randomly break on death. Some of the good ones are hard to come by.

I'm not sure what they're doing with crafting though. It's very similar to Aion in that you require vendor materials, but the cost is so incredibly exorbitant, I don't see how they expect anyone to do it. The UI and setup for it are well-thought out and intuitive, if a bit small (the fonts and icons). Between all of these systems, in addition to the dyeing andappearance modification, you have probably the most robust customization I've ever seen in an MMO. I have yet to see any piece of gear in this game look bad. I'm really curious to see how much fidelity the HD textures will add to an already stunning game.

Would I recommend the game? It really depends on the kind of MMORPGer you are. If you're in lust with TOR, there's very little in the game to compete with Bioware's cinematic storytelling. TOR has a much better single player experience if that's your bag. Gameplay-wise, I think TERA trumps it pretty handily. If you're still playing WoW Aion or Rift, you should definitely check it out. The mechanics are very similar, the combat is really interactive, and the game is goooooogeous. TERA is not the second coming for the genre, but its a highly polished game that brings some new elements to freshen things up. I think it will do well when it launches.

Also for those who still think this game is a typical Korean grinder. I did 1-22 in just under 8 hours - the level cap is 58. There are more than enough quests - main storyline, side-stories and repeatables, to keep your progression chugging along at a nice clip. You even get your mount at level 11 which makes traversing this monstrously huge game much easier.

CBT2 starts tomorrow at 12pm PST. There's another patch you'll need to download after the 7GB HD textures patch. Looks like we will have 5 servers up too. 2 PVP and 3 PVE. Level cap increase to 30. New zone and dungeon available. They're also giving us a second character slot. Anyone else joining the CBT? I'm on Arachnae as Arliman.

I'm still playing. I should be able to show you some screenshots showing the difference. Its mainly on some armors and environmental detail. One thing though, it's doubled the load times of the client, easily. I'm not going to have much playtime till Sunday, so i'll try to have the screenies up by then.

Ok, after some exhaustive screenshot comparison between my current screenshots and the ones I took from the first CBT, I found where the HD texture pack went. It's entirely environmental textures. The textures on mobs and characters are already very high quality. I was pretty startled to see the difference in many of the ground and environment textures. Here's a recap.

As you can see it's pretty dramatic in some cases. Though I was a bit further from the rocks in the second example, up close the detail held up. Anyway here's a full glory 1920x1200 screenshot of what the game looks like in total with everything turned up to max. Though you can't see it in the picture, everything is animating along with the wind that's blowing.

Damn Tenchi, the environments look a lot better from the screenshots. Seems crazy to me because they already looked good before from all the screens/vids I've seen. Will have to give it a shot here soon since it doesn't seem like I'll have to redownload the whole client come open beta/live.

Damn Tenchi, the environments look a lot better from the screenshots. Seems crazy to me because they already looked good before from all the screens/vids I've seen. Will have to give it a shot here soon since it doesn't seem like I'll have to redownload the whole client come open beta/live.

Are you still using a controller or back to keyboard and mouse?

Yeah, some locations its pretty dramatic, but its a real drain on your resources. Isle of Dawn can chug a bit if there's alot of people on and your pushing max settings. Of course its freakin' gorgeous, so a fps drop now and then was a small price to pay.

I'm still using the controller. The camera and movement feels more natural. Navigating menus and stuff still feels awkward but i'm getting used to it. Mouse and Keyboard works fine, you just have to get used to using the mouse to steer.

server died ....me sad ;_;will take pics of my geared up slayer when/if the servers become stable again.

Yeah I was pissed. I was just about to hit 25, making some decent gains. BTW I love how Kira's Binding nerfs mission elites so you can solo them. Really nice not to have to gather a group for some of these bosses. I will say they're alot more exciting in a group, but its nice to have the option. They're so easy to get too.

There was an Amani Berz hanging outside the portal to the instance showing off his dungeon gear. I was in such a rush I didn't screen cap it but good god was it pretty. If the gear is looking this good at 27, I can't imagine how it'll look at 60. I just hope we get the Queen of the Argons content patch by retail launch.

Damn Tenchi, the environments look a lot better from the screenshots. Seems crazy to me because they already looked good before from all the screens/vids I've seen. Will have to give it a shot here soon since it doesn't seem like I'll have to redownload the whole client come open beta/live.

Are you still using a controller or back to keyboard and mouse?

Yeah, some locations its pretty dramatic, but its a real drain on your resources. Isle of Dawn can chug a bit if there's alot of people on and your pushing max settings. Of course its freakin' gorgeous, so a fps drop now and then was a small price to pay.

I'm still using the controller. The camera and movement feels more natural. Navigating menus and stuff still feels awkward but i'm getting used to it. Mouse and Keyboard works fine, you just have to get used to using the mouse to steer.

Is it straining your GPU? I don't think the Tera engine can use SLI and I don't have SLI so things hopefully will run okay. I agree, a little lag here once and awhile isn't a gamebreaker if it means better visuals. Lag is probably worse now anyway because more people are crowded on a couple of servers.

The controller option sounds pretty interesting. I would hate having to use the menus, but you would have 12 abilities at your disposal which is most likely way more than really needed. I may have to look into finding a way to get my 360 controller to work on my PC.